


The Martyrdom of St. Steve

by cablesscutie



Series: Imagine Steve Rogers Prompts [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4640883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cablesscutie/pseuds/cablesscutie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt:  imagine steve ignoring his own trauma history in favor of trying to help bucky, and eventually bucky notices and they help each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Martyrdom of St. Steve

The windshield of the plane shatters. Steve’s face stings, but whether it’s from the ice and freezing waters or the broken glass, he can’t tell. He wants so badly to be brave, to go to the end stoically, Peggy’s words echoing in his ears, but as the water comes up to cover his face, he opens his mouth to let loose a scream.

It isn’t his voice crying out though.

It’s Bucky, tinny and distant, as if coming through the radio, but - but it’s 1945 and Bucky Barnes is dead and gone, but of course, of course, Steve is destined to hear his best friend’s dying scream in his final moments. It’s different though. He’s shouting something frightened and…in Russian?

This isn’t right. Something is off, but Steve can’t quite put his finger on it. A feeling is niggling in the back of his mind, like a memory that wants desperately to be recalled but it’s suppressed. He reaches for it, a desperate grasp, and as the world starts to fade into black, he catches the corner of it and pulls…

Steve bolts upright in his bed, and immediately takes inventory of his surroundings. It’s 2015, and he is in his apartment. The shield is mounted on the wall across from him, and Bucky Barnes was the Winter Soldier. Bucky is starting to remember who he was, and…he’s crying out from his room, trapped in a nightmare.

The covers hit the ground, and Steve clears the room in three strides, racing to the guest room next door. He throws open the door, and Bucky’s eyes fly open wide. Bucky backs instinctively towards the headboard, reaching for the nightstand and whatever weapons he has stashed there before he recognizes Steve’s silhouette in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. 

“Bucky?” Steve asks gently. Day-to-day, Bucky knows who he is. Some specific memories are fuzzy, but he understands that he is James Barnes, that Steve is Captain America and his best friend. After a nightmare, it’s a bit of a toss-up. Usually depends on whether the memories haunting him belong to Sergeant Barnes or the asset. Now, Bucky nods slowly, chest still heaving shakily as he struggles to catch his breath. “Buck,” Steve breathes, taking a step into the room, hands loose and empty at his side. “You with me?” Bucky nods again and lifts his right hand to drag through his hair, making his bedhead even worse. His whole body is trembling, save for his hands, which remained steady as ever.

“Steve,” Bucky chokes out. “Stevie. Come - come here.” Bucky puts his metal hand down on the mattress beside him, palm facing up. Steve takes the cue and sits down on the edge of the bed, covering Bucky’s left hand with his right. Their fingers lace together and Steve gives Bucky’s hand a small tug. Bucky sees it for the invitation it is and goes with the momentum of it, folding himself up into Steve’s arms, face buried in the crook of his neck. One hand cradles the back of Bucky’s neck, and the other rubs up and down his spine, soothing his nerves as his breath puffs against Steve’s collarbone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asks. Bucky’s head shakes side-to-side, bangs brushing Steve’s skin, sweaty forehead catching against the smooth side of Steve’s throat.

“‘S nothing you don’t already know. Just fuckin Zola. Little bastard did a number on me, I guess.” Bucky gives a tiny laugh, and it’s bitter, just like the slight upturn of his lips, but it’s better than the thousand-yard stare of the Winter Soldier. He’s broken, but he’s still Bucky.

“Well, I’ll stay as long as you want.” Bucky leans his head on Steve’s shoulder, letting out a shaky exhale.

“Thanks, pal.”

It quickly becomes a pattern in their household: Steve and Bucky go to bed, Steve relives the crash, or the train, or finds Bucky too late to begin with, only to be ripped out of the dream by Bucky’s screams from the next room, where he joins him and spends the rest of the night talking or keeping watch. Steve tries not to feel the strain of it. Bucky had followed Steve into the mouth of hell and paid dearly for it. Sitting up with him was the least he could do. Still, his shoulders start to sag more, enormous body feeling leaden and sluggish as the sleep deprivation and emotional exhaustion catch up to him.

Bucky tries to tell Steve to rest more, but Steve brushes him off. He’s fine. He’ll sleep later, when Bucky is doing better and doesn’t need him around so much, and Steve is certain that the day will come. It has to - Buck has already made so much progress. In fact, he’s made so much progress that after a few months living with Steve, he sleeps for four solid hours without interruption.

Until the shouting starts up next door, and he’s up and off like a shot, metal hand ripping the knob off of Steve’s bedroom door in the process of yanking it open. Bucky’s eyes search the darkness for threats, cataloguing everything in a flash, but finding no attackers. Just Steve, tangled in the bedsheets, with sweat beading on his forehead, expression pained and teeth gritted.

“Steve,” he calls. “Steve, wake up.” There’s no response. Bucky approaches the bed cautiously, not wanting to spook him. “Come on, buddy, snap out of it. You’re alright.” The words are having no effect. Steve is still struggling and whimpering, fighting an invisible army, and Bucky can’t stand seeing him like this anymore. Carefully, he reaches out and lets his fingertips just barely brush Steve’s arm, before slowly settling his hand on Steve’s skin. The warmth of Bucky’s palm pressed to his shoulder finally brings him around, sitting up against the headboard and taking shaky breaths to try and steady himself. “You okay?” Bucky asks him, replacing a reassuring hand on his shoulder, gripping firm, with his thumb pressed just below Steve’s collarbone. Steve nods, swallowing.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Nah,” Bucky lies. “Was just getting up for a snack.” Steve clearly doesn’t buy it.

“Uh huh.”

“Seriously, what’s going on? You can’t tell me that was nothing; I’m sorta an expert on freaky nightmares.” Steve sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“It was the plane. I was dreaming about when I crashed into the ice.” Steve is shivering a little, and Bucky scoots closer so he can sit beside Steve with his back to the headboard take hold of Steve’s hand.

“I take it this ain’t new?” Steve looks at their intertwined fingers, reluctantly admitting,

“No, it’s not.”

“How long?”

“Ever since I woke up.”

“Every night?”

“No. Just most.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” That’s the tricky question, and of course he knows Buck was bound to ask it. Doesn’t make him any more prepared to answer, though.

“You’ve got enough to deal with. Couldn’t put my baggage on you too.”

“That’s a load of crap.”

“Bucky-”

“No, it is. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Of course you can tell me you’re having trouble. There’s no shame in it. Not between us - not for anything between us.” Bucky actually sounds a little hurt, and Steve looks up to finally meet his eyes. They’re hard, like when Steve used to insist that Bucky didn’t need to fight his battles, and Steve feels a surge of warmth at the familiar expression.

“I’m sorry, Buck. I won’t hide it anymore.”

“Damn right. Won’t be able to anyhow.”

“How do you figure that?”

“‘Cause next time it happens, I’m gonna be right here,” he tells Steve, lifting one side of the blankets and drawing them up so that he and Steve are both bundled up. “You can’t get anything by me anymore, Rogers,” Bucky mutters, shuffling closer and flopping his head down on the pillow beside Steve, who wants to argue, but finds himself instead pressing his face into the soft cotton of Bucky’s shirt and falling soundly asleep.


End file.
